


All our sons

by Anteros



Category: Hornblower (TV)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-01-29
Updated: 2010-01-29
Packaged: 2017-10-26 13:16:01
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,333
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/283606
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Anteros/pseuds/Anteros
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Part two of <a href="http://archiveofourown.org/works/283605">Flotsam</a>, for those few brave souls who made it to the end.</p>
    </blockquote>





	All our sons

**Author's Note:**

> Part two of [Flotsam](http://archiveofourown.org/works/283605), for those few brave souls who made it to the end.

* * *

  
**I**

The guard had been watching him all afternoon. He hadn't moved. He was still lying curled on the floor of the cell where they had left him after dragging him out of the hole. They hadn't expected him to live. He shouldn't have. Most were raving after two weeks and lucky to survive after three. But there he was after four weeks, broken but alive. One or two of the garrison had reason to rue his resilience. Gambling on how long prisoners would survive the Don's particular hospitality was a lucrative sport for some of the men.

The guard opened the heavy door, entered the cell and placed a bowl of thin gruel on the floor within the man's reach. Seating himself on the bunk he eyed the figure on the floor. So this was the troublemaker? He certainly didn't look dangerous now. He looked like nothing so much as a heap of dirty rags. But this was the man who had killed Nunez and Anido. By all that was holy those filthy bastards deserved to die. The guard spat on the floor and crossed himself before leaving the cell and locking the door behind him.

When he returned some time later, with a pitcher and bundle of old clothes, the heap on the floor was still there, the bowl of food untouched. Entering the cell the guard crouched on the floor in front of the prisoner. He stank, but he could see his face now, sallow under the grime with startling blue eyes. Blue, but unfocused, milky and opaque as glass that has rolled too long in the breakers on the shore. His lips were moving slightly but there was no sound. "Levántate. Vamos. Por aquí" _Get up. Come on. Over here._ The guard gestured over to the low bunk. No response. He raised his voice and shook the man's shoulder. "Mover ¡maldita sea!" _Move, damn it!_ Nothing. The guard sighed. Slipping his hands under the man's arms he dragged the curled body across the floor and pulled him upright to lean against the bunk. The man let out a long low moan of pain. His limbs remained in the same cramped position in which he had lain, head sunk forward on his chest.

The guard scratched his chin and wrinkled his nose. Where to start? What remained of the clothes had to go. He knelt down in front of the prisoner and tugged at his shirt "Usted apesta, vamos." _You stink, come on._ Still no response. Removing the man's clothes was no easy task. When the guard tried to straighten the twisted limbs the man whimpered. Fabric and filth were caked to his skin and his body was covered in raw sores. The guard swore liberally while dousing the prisoner with water from the pitcher and scrubbing at the worst of the grime with a handful of straw. The prisoner still hadn't moved or lifted his head but he was murmering something under his breath, a soft shushing and sighing sound, repeated over and over, like waves lapping on the shore.

The guard lifted the man's chin and, pulling a straight razor from his pocket, scraped away a beard that was more dirt than anything. Then he began the painful business of dressing the prisoner in the threadbare shirt and trousers he had brought. He had barely moved but he was holding his head upright and had set his jaw in a thin tight line.

Sitting back on his heels the guard regarded his handiwork. The prisoner looked even younger without the cloak of grime. The guard had a son about that age. He had shipped out of Corunna late last spring and that was the last they had heard of him. "Madre de Dios, todos son nuestros hijos." _Mother of God, they are all our sons._

The guard hauled the prisoner onto the low bunk, threw a rough blanket over him and left, muttering a prayer to Sant'Antonio as he locked the cell behind him. The huddled figure on the bed blinked at the wall and the murmured tide began to flow again...hratio hratio hratio hratio.

* * *

  
 **II**

The guard continued to watch the prisoner. It was several days before he ate. Several more before he spoke, a soft _gracias_ in return for food. By the end of the first week he could sit up against the wall. By the end of the second he could crawl from his bunk to the floor of the cell. But he went no further. After a month he still could not walk. His eyes retained the same unfocused sheen, glassy and red rimmed, sunk in dark bruised sockets. He spent his days lying staring at the wall or sitting blinking at the door of his cell.

The guards who had lost gambling on his survival were growing more confident that they would recoup their losses.

* * *

  
 **III**

It was several days before he knew where he was. Several more before he knew who he was. By the end of the first week disjointed scraps and fragments had started to trickle into his consciousness. Dreams or nightmares or memories, he didn't know. Slowly at first, then a torrent, overwhelming him. By the end of the second week Archie Kennedy knew exactly who he was, where he was and how he had got there. And that was when he wished he was back in the black oblivion of the pit.

Kennedy also knew he had lost something but he didn't know what. He just knew that where before there had been _something_ now there was nothing. Hollow, blank, an empty shell where there had once been a man.

His only comfort, a tiny glimer in the blankness, was that no one would ever know. No one would ever see him. No one would pity him. No one would remember he had ever been. No one. No one. No. One. Something always drew him back to one. To one. To someone. To Horatio. No. He would never know.

And so he lay staring at the wall, day after day, tracing hills and valleys and boundless oceans on the rough surface of the stones. Vast territories invaded by armies of ants. Columns crisscrossing and traversing the vertical planes. Kennedy watched them come and go.

* * *

  
 **IV**

The guard came every day, with food and water. Sometimes he would sit and talk sliding out of accented Spanish and into the soft lilt of the local Galician. Occasionally Kennedy answered a direct question, mostly he just sat and gazed at the door.

One day the guard sat for a long time. Then he started to speak quietly in careful Castilian. "Una gran batalla... _there had been a great battle_... frente a Punta de Sagres... _off Sagres Point_... Cabo de San Vicente...nuestra flota... _our fleet_... sus barcos... _your ships_ San Nicolás barco de mi hijo... _San Nicolás, my son's ship_... Mi hijo mi hijo. San Nicolás, fue su barco. Se supone que debe velar por ellos. ¿Por qué no ver a mi hijo?... _St Nicholas, it was your ship. You are supposed to look after them. Why did you not look after my son?_...meu fillo meu fillo meu fillo pobre... _my son, my son, my poor son_..." The guard had slipped into his own tongue again and was weeping quietly. Kennedy slid down onto the bunk and pulled the blanket over his head.

The following day new prisoners arived at the fort and with them two midshipmen, one fair and stocky, the other dark and tall, much taller, he was so tall.

And with him came all the nameless things that Kennedy had left in the pit; terror, regret, humiliation, shame, loss and loneliness. And the one thing he feared above all else. Hope.

* * *

  
 _Notes:_ San Nicolás _was a Spanish 74 captured at the Battle of Cape St Vincent with the loss of 144 lives. San Nicolás or St Nicholas also happens to be the patron saint of mariners._


End file.
